(www.RemnantNewspaper.com)  A key feature of the Second Vatican Council was its unprecedented suggestion of the idea that all other religions are more or less different branches of the same Universal Church of Christ. To actually assert this would have been heretical, of course; but the insinuation seems to have been engendered by the presence of Protestant delegates who were invited to the Council as consultants on matters of liturgy and doctrine (Michael Davies, Pope John's Council, 1977). Their names for the record were: Canon Jasper, Dr. McAfee Brown, Professor George Lindbeck, Professor Oscar Cullman, Pastor Rodger Schutz, and Archdeacon Pawley (among others).

Unfortunately, these emissaries of false religions played a significant role in shaping various aspects of at least some of the Council documents. Augustine Cardinal Bea, who headed up the Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity, boasted of the contribution made by the Protestant envoys in formulating the Council's decree on Ecumenism, for example. "I do not hesitate to assert that they have contributed in a decisive way to bringing about this result." And according to Professor B. Mondin of the Pontifical Propaganda College for the Missions, delegates such as Dr. Cullman made "a valid contribution" to drawing up the Council documents.

Because of their contribution, the documents introduced novel language such as, "In prayer services 'for unity' and during ecumenical gatherings, it is allowable, indeed desirable that Catholics should join in prayer with their separated brethren." (Unitatis Redintegratio) And what are we to make of this perfidious blunder from the same document: "The Holy Spirit does not refuse to make use of other religions as a means of salvation." This contradicts the Church's dogma that the Holy Spirit works only through the Catholic religion, outside of which there is no salvation (extra ecclesiam nulla salus).

The Council seems to have been intent on rehabilitating the cause of Martin Luther, as Catholics discovered in the 1980 Joint Catholic-Lutheran Commission, which grew out of Vatican II: "Among the ideas of the Second Vatican Council, we can see gathered together much of what Luther asked for, such as the following: description of the Church as ‘The People of God’ (a democratic and non-hierarchic idea); accent on the priesthood of all baptized; the right of the individual to freedom of religion."  

Luther founded the Protestant religion on the false premise that Christ died on the Cross to dispense with our obligations to God (Ten Commandments) so that we may sin freely without worry. Consider his famous quote from August of 1521: "Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly... No sin will separate us from the Christ, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day." (From Luther's famous letter to Philip Melanchthon, August 1, 1521, Luther's Works Vol. 48, pp 281-282)

Herein is the crux and foundation of Protestantism which asserts that Jesus already paid the price, so that our works will neither save nor condemn us. This was a key error of the Reformation that was condemned by the Council of Trent, yet Vatican II asserts that the Holy Spirit works through such a religion and even declares its liturgies and ceremonies to be the manifestation of God’s workings within their institution:

“The brethren divided from us also carry out many liturgical actions of the Christian religion. In ways that vary according to the condition of each Church or community, these liturgical actions most certainly can truly engender a life of grace, and, one must say, can aptly give access to the communion of salvation. It follows that the separated Churches and communities... have been by no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as a means of salvation.”  [UR-3)

Equally disturbing is how the Council seems to attribute to the workings of the Holy Spirit this ecumenical movement to unite all religions into a one-world religion. "Among our separated brethren there increases from day to day the movement, fostered by the grace of the Holy Spirit, for the restoration of unity among all Christians. This movement toward unity is called 'ecumenical'... the one visible Church of God." [UR 2]

The one visible Church of God is the Roman Catholic Church established under the authority of Peter and guided by the popes for the past 2000 years. It is dogmatically taught that none can be saved outside this Church. "It must be held by faith that outside the Apostolic Roman Church, no one can be saved; that this is the only ark of salvation; that he who shall not have entered therein will perish in the flood." (Pope Pius IX, Singulari Quadem, 1854)

The Council's design to ecumenically unite all religions seems to have been foreshadowed in the writings of nineteenth century Freemason and excommunicated priest, Canon Roca (1830-1893), who predicted that "the liturgy of the Roman Church will shortly undergo a transformation at an ecumenical council" in a move "to deprive the Church of its supernatural character, to amalgamate it with the world, to interweave the denominations ecumenically instead of letting them run side by side as separate confessions, and thus to pave the way for a standard world religion in the centralized world state." (Bishop Rudolph Graber PhD, Athanasius and the Church in our Time, 1974)

Canon Roca speaks of a New World Order to come (Novus Ordo Seclorum) which would war against the Order of Tradition. The Second Vatican Council was an opening for this Masonic thread to weave itself into the Church's fabric, thus cloaking the Mystical Body with a new garb. Though the Council was started with the best resolves, the storm of conspiracy rushed in, causing the pope to eventually cry out that "from some fissure the smoke of Satan entered into the temple of God." (Pope Paul VI, June 29, 1972)

Vatican II indeed was that fissure through which the infernal enemy first slipped into the Church. The adversary knew that if he could get his foot in the door he could use the Council to decree error if his agents could simply gain control of the Council's drafting apparatus, which unfortunately they were able to do (Father Ralph Wiltgen, The Rhine Flows into the Tiber).

So with the 50th Anniversary of Vatican II approaching this October 11, it behooves the Catholic hierarchy to take a second look at the Council and how it was used by the enemies of religion to steer the Barque of Peter onto a new and destructive course. The Council was convoked with good intent, but the doors were opened to outsiders and those alien to the Faith, and because the Council was not dogmatic in nature it left an opening for these agents to plant their doctrinal and liturgical time bombs into the Council documents. 

The only recourse for liberating the Church from this quagmire of relativism is to confess  that a mistake was made at the Second Vatican Council, and the approaching 50th Anniversary of the Council is an appropriate time for the hierarchy to do just that. "The truth will make you free." (John 8:32) Let them heed the exhortation of St. Paul to "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21) Pope Benedict XVI accentuates this very point in his April 30, 2011 document on the Tridentine Mass: "What was sacred for prior generations, remains sacred and great for us as well."  (Universae Ecclesia)